Sunday, 6 August 2017

What was the real reason for the 2017 general election? Andrew Marr provides the answer

Jim Al-Khalili: Reminds me of time on hol in Med when I was mistaken for @MarcusduSautoy. But then he was once mistaken for @ProfBrianCox. Go figure.

Thomas Morris: When I worked at the BBC I was once approached in a bar and called a tw*t by a man who'd mistaken me for @bbcnickrobinson.

Nick Robinson: Sorry. No-one has ever said that to me! Other things...Think someone approached @AndrewMarr9 to say "You look like Andrew Marr you poor sod".

Andrew Marr: What happened was: Man in supermarket pursued me from aisle to aisle, silently. Then suddenly popped up at the cashier and said, "Ere you look just like that Andrew Marr (longish pause)... you poor sod!" Which I found curiously difficult to respond to.

P.S.S. And for those who like Twitter rants from BBC journalists, here's BBC World's Julia MacFarlane describing her flight today (well, it made me laugh anyway):

No clearer sign of the decline of @British_Airways than their codesharing with Vueling, rickshaws of the skies. Makes EasyJet look luxurious.

So many children are screaming and a woman is fighting with a man because he clipped a hole in her jumper. It's like feeding time at the zoo.

Now a spotty Spanish teenager is testing my patience and sanity by playing the drums on the back of my seat with an empty drinks bottle.

He's going to get a proper Scottish lamping if he doesn't cease and desist.

If things couldn't get any worse, someone in the row behind sounds like he's contracted bubonic plague.

He just coughed up a galleon of phlegm and I am searching for something I can use to end my life.

If this plane crashes may my final tweets please be used in the court case to shut down this god awful airline.

Never even heard of Vueling before today. Is it even real? The plane, judging by its state, appears to predate the magna carter.

There was always going to be some divorce payment. Nobody ever doubted that. But how is that the reason for Theresa May's foolish gamble? The article is behind the pay wall, so I can't know if that's explained or not.

But it sure is one hell of a climb-down from the dead certain £100 billion payout we were told to expect. All the Beeboids who were sure it was going to be an enormous sum - including Andrew Marr - will look rather foolish if this turns out to be true.

One of Marr's correspondents on his feed says the article states it's basically a payment of three years' worth of fees as a bung for a transition period. Which would explain why last week suddenly everyone in the Cabinet was talking about a transition period. But May didn't need to hold an election to get her own mandate just for that.

PS: Correct response to Nick Robinson's tweet that no one had ever said that to him: You should get out more!

She doesn't know much about airlines does she?Vueling is the largest airline in Spain, it is also owned by IAG.Is the codesharing bit about BA a typical BBC 'as a result of Brexit' dig? If so its a bit late as BA has been part of IAG since the merger with Iberia in 2011.